Latest news with #Buffer
USA Today
18-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
UFC announcer Bruce Buffer delivers signature introduction at 2025 Preakness Stakes
UFC announcer Bruce Buffer delivers signature introduction at 2025 Preakness Stakes UFC octagon announcer Bruce Buffer took his talents to horse racing for the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes. The 2025 Preakness Stakes took place Saturday at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, and just moments before the jockeys mounted their horses, Buffer took the mic to deliver a signature UFC-style introduction, complete with an emphatic, "It's time!" Check out Buffer's full introduction below, which was broadcast live just prior to the race (via X): The Preakness Stakes took place Saturday during UFC Fight Night 256, which took place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Buffer typically has the night off for UFC Apex shows these days, having not announced an event at the venue since June 20, 2024, for UFC on ESPN 60. In his place, Joe Martinez handled the octagon announcing duties. As far as the horse race itself, pre-race favorite Journalism won with a thrilling late charge, bursting through two horses coming out of the final turn, and then passing Gosger, who led most of the race, at the last possible moment.
USA Today
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Bruce Buffer thinks Logan Paul could compete in the UFC: 'He's a supreme athlete'
Bruce Buffer believes Logan Paul is capable of competing in the UFC. Paul, who performs as a WWE star, revealed that UFC CEO Dana White ignored his text message asking if he could be part of UFC 300 last April. Paul wrestled in high school and college. He's also boxed against Floyd Mayweather (exhibition), KSI and Dillon Danis. Buffer, the UFC voice of the octagon, says Paul has enough of a background to compete in the cage. "He's got a pedigree in wrestling," Buffer told TMZ of Paul. "Not just the WWE, he has a pedigree in colligate wrestling if I'm not mistaken. He's quite the athlete. One thing about Logan is he's a supreme athlete. I think, and I've been asked this before, like anybody else, you're talking about 40 weapons in mixed martial arts vs. two weapons in theMarquess of Queensberry Rules of the amazing sport of boxing. He's boxed, he's doing the wrestling. If he trains properly for MMA, I think he could compete in the UFC. It's a matter of who he goes up against." WWE star CM Punk tried his hand at MMA, making his debut in the octagon at UFC 203 in 2016. He was quickly submitted by Mickey Gall, then lost his second appearance to Mike Jackson by unanimous decision at UFC 225 in 2018, which was later overturned to a no contest after Jackson tested positive for marijuana. Punk trained at Roufus Sport with the likes of UFC welterweight champion Belal Muhammad and former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis. Buffer advises Paul to also seek high-level training if he were given the opportunity for a UFC fight. "Logan, if you're going to train with somebody, train with the best, and I'm sure Logan definitely could afford to train with the best," Buffer said. "Just to watch Logan walk into the octagon would bring a lot of eyeballs to the sport from his fanbase."
Forbes
08-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
15 Game-Changing AI Tools For Social Media And Content Creation
Discover the most powerful generative AI tools that are transforming how businesses approach social ... More media management and content creation When it comes to social media management, generative AI tools can be hugely useful for helping with planning and scheduling, as well as automating routine elements of content creation. In fact, there are literally hundreds of platforms, tools, and applications out there that are designed to help amateurs and professionals execute engaging and follow-worthy social campaigns. Here's my pick of some of the best, ranging from social posts and video generators to scheduling and natural-language analytics platforms. They're all designed to help make social media fun again by taking care of the busy work while you get creative. CapCut CapCut is hugely popular among content creators and influencers because it lets anyone create, edit and share videos in a very simple way. It also has powerful generative AI features, including options for brainstorming ideas, automating SEO captions, generating custom avatars and even instantly creating AI videos from a script. Influencers love it because they can do all of this from their phone, but social media pros have also made it a favorite thanks to its advanced video editing features and functionality. Canva Magic Studio Canva was already widely used by social media managers and content creators but has become even more useful since it launched Magic Studio. This is a suite of tools specifically designed to automate and simplify social content workloads. Magic Write and Magic Media create text and images for your posts from prompts, and if you're working across different channels and networks, everything can be reformatted and repurposed with a simple command. Its collaborative approach to working means it is great for teams, too, Buffer This is another tool that's fantastic for those who need to republish content across many different networks. Focusing on the management of ongoing campaigns, its AI Assistant function is designed to brainstorm ideas and instantly re-write content for different tones and different audiences. It's built on OpenAI technology, so language processing is sophisticated and accurate, and the user interface is super simple and easy for anyone to get to grips with. Buffer has been a favorite tool of social media managers for some time, and now, thanks to genAI, it's more useful than ever. ContentStudio This is another powerful all-in-one social content platform that integrates solutions for crafting, scheduling and analyzing social posts. Its AI assistant is fine-tuned to create posts and captions that encourage engagement. There are a fair few tools that do this sort of thing now, but what makes ContentStudio one of the best is its user-friendly single-dashboard approach that lets users jump straight into creating AI-powered campaigns across major social platforms. A new feature called ContentPen also promises to let users generate blogs tailored to fit their brand voice. Adobe Express Adobe has long been an industry leader when it comes to building tools for digital creatives. Today, thanks to AI, literally anyone can be a digital creative, and Express (formerly known as Spark) is Adobe's attempt to capture this enormous new market. Express is a very polished and well-featured product that lets users jump straight into just about any digital design task, but it's particularly suited to small businesses or independent content creators. It uses Adobe's powerful proprietary Firefly generative AI models for text and image generation. An additional benefit for business users is that these models are exclusively trained on content that Adobe owns the rights to, heading off any potential future problems that might pop up around IP use. The Best Of The Rest That's far from all there is when it comes to generative AI tools for social media management and content. Here's a rundown of some of the other top choices: Anyword Automate copy generation and performance analytics. Contlo A generative AI-native e-commerce marketing platform for business users. Run social media accounts on autopilot. HootSuite The long-established social management platform now features an AI writing assistant called Owly. Lumen5 Instantly transform blog posts into videos. Omnkey Generate ads and creative materials aimed at business performance. Automate the creation of video ads and AI auto-posting. Scalenut Use generative AI to plan and create content campaigns as well as audit and optimize your output. Sprout Social Integrates generative AI with analytics to give natural language insights into your campaigns. Vista Social Leverages ChatGPT to generate posts and captions. As generative AI continues to evolve at a rapid pace, these tools represent just the beginning of how artificial intelligence will transform social media management and content creation. Whether you're a solo entrepreneur, small business owner, or enterprise marketing leader, adopting the right AI solutions can significantly reduce your workload while enhancing creativity and engagement. The key is finding the tools that best align with your specific needs and brand voice—and then leveraging them to maintain a consistent, compelling presence across all your social channels. Those who embrace these technologies now will likely find themselves with a considerable advantage in the increasingly competitive digital landscape.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'It's the best poker hand I've played': How Bruce Buffer forced his way into the UFC (with a little help from TV's 'Friends')
Bruce Buffer is known as the "Voice of the Octagon" for a reason. Twenty-nine years ago, at UFC 8, Buffer made his debut as the promotion's in-cage announcer, setting the stage for an iconic run that's led Buffer to be included in 2025's UFC Hall of Fame class. At this point, Buffer is synonymous with the sounds of a big UFC title fight, however it took some convincing to land him the spot that became his calling. As Buffer recalled on Uncrowned's "The Ariel Helwani Show," before he got his chance on the microphone, he helped his legendary brother Michael Buffer — of "Let's get ready to rumble!" fame, who he managed — occupy the spot first. "I went to UFC 6 in Casper, Wyoming, and I had my brother announce the first one, and that was the debut of Tank Abbott. And I knew that was my world the moment I saw it," Buffer said. "I had my brother announce three of the UFCs, then I had to pull him because the WCW wrestling he was involved with got so big. "We only had a three-fight contract. During that time, at UFC 6, we were having dinner with Robert Meyrowitz, the owner of SEG, and they said, 'Michael, when you go out in the Octagon, you need to say, 'If it's not in the Octagon, it's not real.' Right? I knew that as soon as he said that, I was going to get a call from the people that I was dealing with at WCW wrestling on a Monday. Which they did. They called me on Monday, they said, 'What are you doing having Michael do this crap,' in so many words. "I said, 'Look, I have a contract [for Michael]. He's allowed to do it. He's got a three-fight deal [with UFC]. I want him to finish the deal,'" he continued. "Michael could not have continued [after that] anyway, he was so busy doing everything else I had him in. And then I thought, this is my world — let me work my way into this. It took me a year and a half to convince the UFC to let me become the announcer." Similar to the role he served with his brother, Buffer was more of a behind-the-scenes string-puller than on-camera talent at the time. Former UFC heavyweight Scott Ferrozzo, in particular, was one of the fighters he managed. So Buffer tried to combine his two goals when negotiating with Meyrowitz. Ultimately, it was nothing more than a ruse — one Buffer readily admits decades later. "I sent [Ferrozzo's] tape off to Meyrowitz, and Meyrowitz said, 'Yeah, let's get him in,'" Buffer said. "So I went down [to the event] as his manager, but I didn't want to manage fighters. "I did this as a ploy on my part, because after stopping in New York and asking for the job, and calling him up saying, 'You need me, I have the media contacts you don't have, I'll help you build this brand. I'm a brand builder. I'll do everything I can outside of being the announcer, but I need to grow with you as the announcer to make that happen.' It just all fell on deaf ears." While tagging along with Ferrozzo in Puerto Rico for the big man's debut at UFC 8, Buffer finally had his wish granted when he pleaded to announce just the event's prelims as an on-the-spot tryout of sorts. Buffer didn't get the chance to follow up by announcing at UFC 9, but he got the call for UFC 10, then landed a lucky cameo on the hit show "Friends" playing himself on an episode centered around the UFC. Had it not been for one of the most popular sitcoms of all time, Buffer's famous catchphrase — "It's time!" — may have never woven itself into the fabric of the UFC. "They call me and said, 'Listen, we're doing a show called 'Friends,' and we're doing the 'Ultimate Fighting Champion' is the title of the episode,'" Buffer said. "They have a voiceover, but they wanted the real announcer, so Warner Brothers sent a runner down to my house to get audio and tape. And they hired me to co-star as myself on 'Friends.' I thought, 'OK, this is it.' "I saw Robert Meyrowitz on the set, I said, 'Listen, we've got to meet at lunch. I've got to talk to you.' I met with him and I hit him right in the face with it. This was the last time I was going to ask. I said, 'Robert, I'm co-starring as myself in the biggest comedy on TV, which is the biggest publicity you've ever had for the UFC. I'm going to ask you one more time — I feel like a girl waiting to be asked to the prom and nobody is asking me to the prom. Let me be the Octagon announcer, to grow with you and help you build this brand with whatever I can bring to the table. I don't want anything for that. I just want to be the announcer with you at the show.' "It's the best poker hand I've played," Buffer added, "That's where we made the deal, and from that point on, I continue to announce the UFC." After almost three decades of hyping up fans across the globe before the many of the biggest fights in the history of the sport, Buffer's passion hasn't wavered. As he heads into the UFC Hall of Fame, he's happy to celebrate the incredible journey — and he doesn't plan to call it a career anytime soon. "I just take great pride in it, and I maintain that passion," Buffer said. "And quite frankly, I'm 67 now, and I've been doing this for 29 years. Mentally, physically, I keep myself in shape, ready to go. I plan on doing this as long as I can, as long as I can do it in the way I like to do it. If I have to walk out and stand center stage and stay still and just go like this, that's not going to do it for me. I gotta announce the way I want to announce, otherwise it's time for me to say goodbye and somebody else can step in and do the thing.'
Telegraph
14-02-2025
- Sport
- Telegraph
Michael Buffer, a rock band, fireworks – and then a 0-0: Super League's bizarre season opener
The Super League returned for the 2025 season in bizarre fashion on Thursday night as Leigh Leopards beat local rivals Wigan Warriors 1-0 in golden-point extra time. The pre-match pomp and ceremony included fireworks, rock music and even legendary ring announcer Michael Buffer, but the off-field extravaganza was not replicated on the pitch as Leigh and Wigan played out the first 0-0 draw in the competition's 29-year history. 'Let's get ready to rumble!' boomed Buffer. It's a voice and phrase that is recognisable to millions across the world and one that usually sparks a sporting spectacle. Boxing announcer Buffer was the latest addition to Wigan's theatrical build-up to their forthcoming Las Vegas trip, where they take on Warrington Wolves on March 1 in the first-ever Super League match to take place in the United States. The largest opening-night crowd in Super League history had been treated to live music from local rock band The Lathums, as well as a series of fireworks that built the anticipation to a fever pitch. The introduction of captain's challenge, a rule that allows teams to contest on-field refereeing decisions, alongside thousands of fans eager to see if Wigan's push for a third successive Super League title would start with a bang, meant it was an affair that would surely offer drama of the highest quality. A match low in points, but high in suspense There had been 4,967 Super League games before the 2025 season began, yet no match had ever ended 0-0 after 80 minutes. Step forward quadruple-winning Wigan Warriors. Facing a Wigan side who did not concede a single try in any of their final four games in 2024, it was always going to be an uphill battle for Leigh in their search for a first away win against their esteemed opponents since 1983. A resilient defensive display from both sides forced the game into extra time, as a Super League match ended without a try for only the third time ever. It took until the 82nd minute for the electronic scoreboard to click into action as Leigh's Gareth O'Brien let fly from range with a drop goal that confirmed the first 1-0 win in Super League history. Despite the lack of points it was a frantic game packed full of energy that Wigan will be looking to take to their trip to Las Vegas. 'It had a play-off feel to it with the intensity,' said Leigh's coach, Adrian Lam. 'Our fans will be tearing Leigh up tonight given how long they've had to wait for this. I'm delighted for them.' 'Wigan are the only club we haven't beaten since coming back up to Super League. Our first win here in 42 years. It's a wonderful achievement.'
